Chapter 10 - Pyrrhic Victory
Due to Jaune's massive aura supply, it only took him one week to heal both his legs and his ribs. During this time, he didn't see Velvet once, he was upset by this fact, but he had no idea what he would say if he saw her anyway.
As Professor Port's reveling lecture concluded in Grimm Studies, Jaune began to limp his way to the cafeteria, he couldn't walk yet, his aura wasn't that powerful. But he could make his way about.
Grabbing some Nevermore Wings, he sat down at the usual table and started eating. He looked over to where one would normally find team CRDL, they were sitting there, but one spot was empty. Despite the objections of his friends, Jaune decided not to press charges against the rest of team CRDL, saying that they were only following orders; he would be seeing Cardin in Court though.
Jaune firmly believed that everyone should have a second chance, not a third. He let the rest of Cardin's team off with a warning, and Professor Ozpin gave them all two month's detention, while Cardin got expelled. It was more than good enough, but the only way Cardin was getting out of Jail was if he pleads insanity, not hard to believe.
Even then, there was no way he could come back, Beacon doesn't accept applicants with a criminal record, nor does it accept the clinically insane, so Jaune doubted he'd be seeing him again. He felt bad for Russel, Dove and Sky for breaking apart their team, but it would be better to be a broken team apart, then a whole one in prison.
He was certain he'd never see any harassment from that team again.
As the rest of the group soon filled into the cafeteria, Jaune found his musings broken when his attention was awkwardly grabbed. "H-hey Jaune." Velvet greeted with a wave of her hand. Jaune nearly choked on his food. "O-oh, hey Velvet, how are you?" Velvet laughed softly. "I should be the one asking you that, you're still limping, aren't you?"
Jaune shook his head. "Oh it's not that bad, nothing to worry about, really." As the two continued their awkward conversation, the rest of their friends soon sat down with them. When Yang noticed the two, she smiled knowingly, it didn't go unnoticed by Jaune.
'Oh my God, Ren was right! She knows. How does she already know?' Before Jaune could stop her, Yang had already begun the initiative. "Well, you two seem awfully close, did something happen recently?" Jaune gulped nervously, as baddass as Velvet may be, she was still surprisingly nervous when it came to social interactions.
"I don't know what you're talking about Yang." Jaune replied, picking his words carefully. "We've always been this close, haven't we Velvet?" Velvet looked between the two in fear, it would be wrong to lie, but she didn't want to think of what Pyrrha may do if she found out what happened.
"R-right, nothing's different between us at all…" She was already starting to crack. 'Come on Velvet, don't let me down now!' Jaune thought, as he looked on in horror. Yang didn't even bother replying, she just looked at Velvet with a small smile. It was only a matter of time before-
"Alright, fine. WE KISSED!" Her hands immediately shot to her mouth in an attempt to cover what had already been said. Yang burst out laughing while Weiss and Ruby both blushed, Ren and Blake smiled softly, as Nora began dancing around the place singing 'Jaune and Velvet sitting in a tree!' over and over again. Jaune deadpanned while Pyrrha stood to her feat.
"WHAT?!" She screamed in a jealous outrage. "How did this even happen?!" Velvet flinched while Jaune looked over to her nervously. "Well, the night I woke up, Velvet stayed behind after everyone left, I told her if there was anything she wanted, she should just ask. I felt like I needed to repay her for what she did." He stopped for a moment, wondering how he should say the next part.
"So in return, she kissed me. I didn't think about stopping her, instead I just started kissing back. I figured 'If that's what she wants, that's what she gets.' Ever since, well…" He looked away sadly. "Today was the first day we spoke since then."
Pyrrha couldn't believe what she was hearing. 'They kissed? Jaune kissed another girl? I didn't get his first?' As these thoughts plagued her head, she found unmatched resolve when one thought struck her. 'If I can't have his first kiss, the best I can do is give him mine.'
With this thought in her head, Pyrrha leaned across the table, grabbed Jaune by his tie, pulled him towards her and met him halfway.
The two locked lips instantly, Pyrrha felt a wave of pure bliss cross over her, but ignored it and tried her hardest to deepen the kiss. Jaune was shocked beyond words, but the wave of pleasure he felt caused him to lose his bearings and so he began to kiss back.
As they were beginning to run out of breath, Pyrrha slid her tongue into his mouth and licked his tongue with her own; she really wanted to outmatch Velvet.
As the two parted, Pyrrha pushed Jaune back into his seat, stood up, and walked out of the cafeteria, Velvet left through the other exit in a jealous outrage. When Jaune came back to his senses, he saw all of the members of his group staring at him in awe.
"What just happened?" He asked, not entirely capable of comprehending the past sequence of events.
Pyrrha was upset with herself, she let her emotions control her actions, and hurt Velvet in the process. But she couldn't get over the fact that she just had her first kiss. And it was with Jaune Arc, she was positively elated.
Pyrrha knew that she would have to apologize eventually, but that could wait, she wanted to take her mind off of her thoughts, so she made a beeline for the training arena. When she arrived, Pyrrha called out to the room. "Run the training simulation for me, F.I.L.S.S." An artificial female voice replied. "Initiating training program."
Pyrrha reached the center of the training floor. As she did, she was soon surrounded by two rows of rotating green, holographic targets. Pyrrha readied herself before begining to expertly punch and kick them, turning them red, and raising her score.
As the last of the targets turn red, the voice (now known to be F.I.L.S.S.) announces the results. "Round complete. A six-point-three percent increase in efficiency that round Miss Ni-" "Run it again, F.I.L.S.S." Pyrrha interrupts, not caring about the results, and only wanting something to take her mind off of things.
"Resetting training room floor for next round." As the targets reappear, Pyrrha takes no time at all to begin attacking them. By this point Jaune had left the Cafeteria in search of her. He knew exactly where she would've gone. But he wasn't expecting her to be acting the way she was when he saw her.
"Round complete." Pyrrha interrupted the A.I. "Run it again F.I.L.S.S." The voice continued. "A three-point-" Pyrrha was getting mad now. "I said run it again!"
"Resetting training room floor for next round." As Pyrrha began attacking the holograms again, Jaune noticed that her movements were sloppy; she was missing a lot of the targets as well. 'What's going on with her?' He wondered as the last hologram was hit.
"Run it again." She said as the voice continued to record the results. Jaune was watching intently as Pyrrha did a particularly high jump kick, he saw that when she booted herself off the ground, she did so at an odd angle and merely fell to the floor.
The resounding *crack* that followed had Jaune running towards her and shutting down the simulation. "Pyrrha! Are you ok?!" Jaune yelled as he saw her expression twist to a look of pain.
Jaune looked managed to grab Pyrrha's attention long enough for her to give him an apologetic smile. "Sorry about that Jaune, it looks like I let my emotions cloud my judgement, seems it even affected my fighting."
Jaune shook his head. "Don't say sorry Pyrrha, everyone needs a release, and you shouldn't keep your emotions bottled up in the first place anyway." Jaune just kept smiling at Pyrrha until he decided that sitting around wouldn't help her ankle. "Now come on, let's get you to the Medical Bay."
While standing up, Jaune grabbed Pyrrha with one hand under her knees, and the other holding her shoulder, lifting her up bridal style. The amount of time it took for the red to reach her face should have knocked her out, it was practically instant.
Jaune laughed. "Really? You're perfectly fine with kissing me, but having me carry you makes you blush? I'll never understand women." As he began to walk out of the training grounds, Jaune realized a small problem.
The training grounds were situated on the western side of Beacon, while the Medical Bay was on the eastern side. A huge design flaw in Jaunes opinion, they should be next to each other, in case of a training accident, like this one.
"Sorry Pyrrha, this could take a while." When Jaune didn't get a reply, he looked down in confusion. Only to find that Pyrrha had fallen asleep in his arms, despite the large amount of pain she should have been feeling. He only smiled as he continued to walk to the Med Bay.
Classes had already started by the time they left the training grounds, so Jaune didn't come across any other students or teachers. He decided that all of his friends would be in class as well, so he shouldn't bother messaging them yet.
It took him no more than ten minutes to bring Pyrrha to the Med Bay, even with his limp. When he walked inside, he saw the nurse from before, the one that came in when he woke up. "Excuse me Miss…" He started, trying to gain her attention.
"Oh hello there Mr Arc, here with another woman I see, at least you're the one carrying her this time." She seemed to have a sense of humour, Jaune was glad. "Very funny Miss, but I'm afraid my friend here has broken her ankle, she's only sleeping right now but she'll be in some pretty bad pain when she wakes up."
The Nurse nodded in understanding. "Of course, please come with me, I'll set up a room for her and call a Doctor immediately." Jaune thanked her as he brought Pyrrha into an empty room. The Nurse left to find the Doctor as soon as he did.
When Jaune heard the door close behind them, he knew that he would have to leave when the Doctor arrived, so he decided to talk to Pyrrha before he left, even if she couldn't hear him.
"Listen Pyrrha…" He started as he pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, while she was training, her hair tie fell out and her hair was let down as a result. He always loved the way she looked with her hair down, it was simply mesmerizing.
"You and I are gonna have a talk once you're allowed visitors, you need to stop overexerting yourself. You're ten times stronger than I am, you really don't need to get much stronger. Besides… I just don't want to see you get hurt."
As he finished talking to her, the door opened behind him and Jaune was ushered out of the room, the Nurse told him that he could see his 'girlfriend' at the end of the day and that he should return to class to spend time with his other girlfriend.
He didn't bother trying to correct her.
As Jaune walked into his History class, Oobleck reprimanded him for being late, he then went on a spiel about how some great General was late to the war and… no one could really understand him after that.
Jaune sat down next to Velvet and she asked what had taken him so long. "I'll tell you at the end of class." Was his only reply.
As Oobleck raced around the room, he froze in mid glide when he noticed the bell began to ring. He ended his lecture and the students filed out of the classroom. As Jaune left, he messaged everyone on his contacts list that Pyrrha was in the Med Bay on a broken ankle. They were all in front of him in an instant.
"What happened?" Ren asked, with slight traces of fear in his voice. "A training accident." Jaune replied. "She fell on her ankle after failing a high jump kick. The rest is history." As Jaune spoke, everyone noted that he seemed distant, he was obviously upset because of Pyrrha, but he wasn't acting natural.
No one dared ask why.
"Well?! What are we waiting for?!" Nora asked, confused as to why everyone was just standing around. "LET'S GO SEE HER!" Everybody smiled at the hyperactive girl's antics and couldn't help but agree.
Pyrrha had woken up to a great deal of pain in her left ankle, when she checked to see what it was, medical tape was all she found. Pyrrha then took note of her surroundings and saw that she was in what seemed to be a hospital bed. Thinking back to what may have caused this; Pyrrha remembered the incident in the training facility.
"I'm such a fool…" She thought aloud. "Why do you say that, Miss Nikos?" Replied a voice that Pyrrha didn't recognize. Looking to her left, she saw a Nurse sitting in a chair placed next to her bed.
Startled, Pyrrha took a moment to reply. "I let my emotions bottle up, and acted irrationally because of it, my leader is probably disappointed in me now."
The Nurse looked very surprised by this. "Do you mean that Jaune Arc, fellow?" Pyrrha nodded. "You do realize that he carried you the entire way here, don't you?" Pyrrha's shocked expression answered the question for her.
"I don't think that boy is disappointed in you dear. Something tells me he might even have a thing for you." Pyrrha's blush double in size, and the Nurse laughed as she made for the exit. After she left, Pyrrha was left with her thoughts.
For about five seconds.
The door opened and her entire team walked in, team RWBY and even Velvet decided to visit at that time too. Pyrrha felt warm when she saw how much her friends cared for her, Nora even brought flowers. Jaune spoke first.
"Hey Pyrrha, how ya holdin' up?" Pyrrha smiled at the blonde, but before she could answer, Yang had interrupted her. "I'd say she's feeling a lot better now that you're here, Jaune. Isn't that right Pyrrha?"
She was blushing in no time. "I don't know what you're talking about Yang, it's not like we're going out or anything. We're just friends." Yang's grin widened even further.
"And yet the entire cafeteria saw you two kissing… Wonder what that was all about." Jaune was getting tired of Yang's torment. "Come on Yang, lay off her. I'm sure it was a spur of the moment thing, right Pyrrha?" Everyone could see her disappointment at what Jaune had said.
"Yes, you're right Jaune, it won't happen again." Her voice cracked slightly, and Jaune felt guilty immediately. "Well… I mean, I suppose that it could happen again… maybe, I don't know…" The awkwardness in the air was practically tangible, but it dissipated quickly, Pyrrha smiled as a result.
Night had fallen on Beacon, and with it, the need for sleep. As everyone made for the door to leave, Jaune stayed behind, he needed to speak with Pyrrha alone before he left.
Everyone nodded in understanding. While Velvet was slow to agree with it, she let it slide this once. Yang only smiled knowingly.
As the door shut, Jaune turned to Pyrrha lying in the bed, things got awkward immediately. "H-how long are you going to be in here for?" He asked, already knowing he wouldn't like the answer.
"One week, I don't have the amount of aura that you do, so it'll take some time to heal." Jaune nodded, he wasn't the best at small talk, so he decided that it would be best to just tackle the problem.
"Pyrrha, I need you to understand that I'm not sure how I feel at the moment. I was happy when you kissed me, but I was also happy when Velvet did too. I like you Pyrrha, I care about you a lot. But I don't know who I'm in love with, so I need you to stop acting so forward, and just give me time to decide on my own."
Pyrrha looked away, unable to match her leader's gaze. "I-is that an order?" She was very afraid that she made a mistake today. That fear left her when Jaune cupped her cheeks in his hands and turned her to look at him; he had such a warm smile.
"No, it's a request." No sooner had he finished his sentence, Jaune leaned in and pressed his lips against Pyrrhas. She was shocked to say the least, but she soon found herself melting into it.
One final thought played in her head as they parted and Jaune left the room. 'If he wants time to decide on his own, I'll give him time.' Pyrrha closed her eyes, deep in thought.
'But a little push every now and then couldn't hurt…'